Docility, St Thomas Aquinas tells us, is one of the integral parts in the discerning task of prudence (deciding the right thing to do). It means knowing how to listen, so that we can be teachable.

Sentinels needed to be docile and ready- ready to listen. Yes for every stir or sound

’round the place of their guard.

And night shift sentinels had an added challenge. Darkness surrounded them. They needed to be still to hear the slightest sounds. They had to be prepared to receive the circumstances around them.

And as the night wore on, they tired as they waited. They longed for those first rays of light on the horizon. The promise that they might see and might be able to find some rest.

Are you awaiting the dawn? Is it hard to be still and to listen with docility? You want to discern the right thing. You shiver until the sun brings some warmth.

How to be like the sentinel? How to stay still in the dark? Do you wait for a reconciliation? A healing, or a place to work and to live? Do you wait to know your vocation? And what God is calling you to do?

Especially when God’s seems to be silent. You wait for the dawn of answered prayer. You stay awake so you’re ready to hear.

And creation tells us the story. We’ve listened to it day after day :

Night time is always over.

And time moves us into the light.

Tested in long times of suffering, we are born children of the day.

He makes all things new.

God bless all you sentinels out there waiting. I join my heart prayers to yours.

I choose to trust in His promises of day. My soul will await the dawn.

“Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

But a mist used to rise from the earthand water the whole surface of the ground. Then… God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being… God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.” (Genesis 2:5-8)

From a place where mist used to rise, in a garden,

God created the first human person.

Mists are mysterious. They mystify. Scripture says that we’re born into a beautiful garden, shrouded in the mysteries of life.

Salvation history began at this moment, and continues on to today. But today, we celebrate the Easter season, and our Savior is risen and in our midst.

How did we get from mist to midst?

Our walk with God has been a complicated one. With freedom, we’ve fallen from grace. We’ve toiled and worked in the gardens of our lives, and struggled through sin, suffering, loss and even death.

Death. That’s the “d” that splits the word mist.

These things, especially the finality of death, remain mysterious and dreadful realities, unless we truly rejoice in what we’re celebrating these days.

Does Jesus’ death split the mist in your life?

Can His Presence in your midst make sense of all your suffering?

Mary Magdalene’s in a “mist”- a mist of tears and of confusion. She’s in the mist of the early morning hours after being up all night weeping.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” (John 20:15)

Here we are back in a garden. It’s not until the “Gardener” calls her name, that all the mist evaporates.

He’s in our midst.

And His death has separated all the confusion. His death has breathed life back into the human person.

“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26)

Notice He doesn’t take the “d” word away. In fact it seems to be the only way!

If we do not know the necessity of dying with Christ as the mysterious reality of a life of faith, we can never really know the beauty of His Presence, risen and in our midst.

Let His death defy the MIST-ery.

Let His death make all things clear. Our Savior rises in glory and He lives, so we can too.

It’s such a catchy tune. He’s in love with your body. He’s in love with the “shape of you”.

So just what kind of shape is your body in? As we finish this fourth week of Lent? A lot of people I know are “feeling it”…

…the desert, the discipline, the death to self. Their bodies are beat.

They’re feeling like their body’s are in the shape of the Cross. Hanging up there with Christ.

That’s the shape of HIS BODY. And it’s given for you.

So the lines can become hard ones to sing: ” Who-a, who-a, who-a , who-a….I’m in love with your Body, Lord. I ‘m in love with the shape of you….the shape of the cross that we are sharing right now. Because my pain in yours and yours in mine. We’re suffering together.

This passion? This shape? It’s intense.”

What if we sang as we waltzed up the communion aisle….sang that song with all our heart?

“Lord, I’m in love with your Body of Christ in the Eucharist. I’m just so in love. I can’t wait to meet you- I’ll be your Bride, and you’ll be my Bridegroom.

You see the shape I’m in, and you love me!

And, I’m in love with your Body, Lord!”

We pray, we receive, and peace comes even while we still hang in the shape of the cross. Our eyes open and once more we can untwist the lyrics of this song of longing and union in the heart. We look around and let them apply to our brothers and sisters in Christ. St Paul tell us that we are the Body of Christ. And each member is united to the rest. When one suffers, the whole body suffers. If one is well, the whole body’s well.

Am I in love with the Body of Christ? In the people in my life each day?

Will I let my body take the shape of a cross for them?

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! Can I say to the members of the Body of Christ- I’m in love with the shape of you….especially when you are suffering in the shape of a cross. I’m in love with your body. I will be a gift of self out of love for you. I want us to hope and to heal.”

Every heart is longing for union and love. Mysteriously, every heart will find rest in the shape of the Body of Christ.

This is my love song this Lent. A song that leads to true love and real life.

She’s known worldwide. She is a real person in history. Even after her death in the first century, she’s been seen all over the world – and with different faces.

Scientifically unexplained phenomenon are attributed to her. It can be hard to refute her successes. Century after century claim miracles affected by her power. December 2015’s National Geographic Magazine named her the world’s most powerful woman.

Who is woman of strength? Her name is Mary of Nazareth.

She was chosen as the Mother of Jesus Christ. The Mother of the Savior of the world.

She always appears to the small and humble, often to little children. The messages are always the same: Pray, and turn back to God. Simple messages from a mother who loves her children.

Her appearance as an Aztec princess in Mexico in 1531 resulted in her miraculous image being left on a cactus fiber tilma, the cloak of the poor Juan Diego. This tilma hangs in the basilica in Mexico City where millions have been converted to God upon seeing her. It’s fiber should have long ago deteriorated and studies of the tilma baffle scientists.

At Lourdes, France she appeared to the meek Bernadette, and asked the people to pray and turn to God. A spring rose up from the ground where they met, and this water has affected thousands of healing miracles. Some are medical healings of the body and some are emotional and spiritual healing of interior peace and new perspective.

She predicted the 2 world wars at Fatima and also the genocide in Rwanda. At the time of her last visit in Fatima, a secular newspaper reported the miracle of the sun spinning in the sky.

She has appeared to countless saints, who were commissioned to make her more known. Many of the bodies of these saints remain incorrupt – more evidence of what must necessarily be called supernatural. Her messages continue today, as she fulfills her task of speaking to her children about God’s mercy and His desire to be one with them.

Some listen and are set free. Others turn away unwilling to believe. But still there are the proven facts that even science cannot explain.

What is the source of this woman’s power?

Contrary to the world’s definition, Mary’s is not derived from self. Contrary to our nature which demands human praise, Mary’s ultimate power comes from complete openness to God’s love within her.

And because of this, Mary is not only the most powerful woman who ever lived, but also the most free. Her freedom is completed directed by the love of God that fills her.

Because of her great freedom, which opens her up completely to God’s life and love, she is able to agree to be the very link between divine life and human life.

God in the flesh, comes to dwell within her.

Because of her receptivity she is able to contain Infinity. Because of her humility, she becomes the most powerful.

What of broken humanity? What of women wounded? Either by others who have wrongly dominated them, or by their own inward tendency to self? Is it even possible to look to Mary as our model?

If she is in fact the link, and the surest way to the power, the answer could be to turn to her. Could we ask her how we might heal?

Could we turn to her to show us the way to true feminine power?

Can we imitate her openness to God’s love so it can fill us? Can we forgive those who have so greatly offended us? Can suffering transform us into something great?

Only if we are convinced of the power of God. Only if we are convinced Mary can lead us there.

May our souls take a glance at this woman of power, and give pause to the way she can lead us to our own.

Not to mention- it means the start of Lent. The penance, the pruning, the picking up of crosses.

All to be a follower of Christ.

Ashes there to remind me. I’ll return to the dust. This side of life is short. Better hope the smudge wears off before too many see.

I have to admit to being fooled into thinking that real beauty is only what is pleasing to the senses and what looks good on the outside right now. And not that those aren’t wonderful and good things: The smell of a rose. The sight of a beautiful face. The mysterious landscape in a painting.

But sometimes life is messy. And circumstances repulsive to me. I don’t move toward them but run away…even from myself. I don’t see beauty on my face at all- just smudged on ashes on my face. Just me returning to dust.

But I’ve also lived through too many Lents now. I know how this works out. I’ve seen those black ashes can become beauty….that smudge become my path to glory.

And it’s worth the work to push on through to the other side of ashes.

What’s on the other side of ashes? Resurrection. Glory. Beauty. And Light. There’s only one way to do the work of black ashes into beauty. Mostly I don’t “work” at all. Surrender is the key….surrendering that mess to the One who came to transform it.

Do I believe He can love me enough this year, to meet me here in ashes?

I do. That’s what we say at a wedding. I do believe He loves me. I do believe He can transform this lowly body into a glorified one. (Phillipians 3:21) I do believe He can take me to the other side of ashes.

40 Days will bring me there. I wonder what He has in store for me this year.

I wonder what the smudge will teach me- about Him, about myself and about others.

But more than anything else, I’ll wonder about the other side of ashes.

Where I’ll see Him, me, everyone, and everything in radiant beauty and glory.

Primetime TV is getting ready to launch a new series displaying the gifts and talents of the Holy Spirit in unique and unrepeatable persons.

The show is entitled “American Icon”

and showcases the flame of the Third Person of the Trinity as seen through individuals who serve as icons through which we see God.

Judges will be called Receptors, who view the icons and then lead American’s viewers in commenting on the distinct ways fans can receive the gift of God as seen through the icon.

American Icons’ participants will prepare for the show

with a deep interior prayer life and with grace from the sacraments.

These icons will sing, paint, dance, and act in a free gift of self that displays hitherto unforeseen beauty and glory. As unique performers on the stage of life, their death to self will be evident. The audience where the show will air is expected to have appear to them “tongues as of fire” (Acts 2:3) and all may even begin to speak in different languages as the Holy Spirit enables them to proclaim. (Acts 2:4)

Many will be astounded and amazed. Many will be brought to closer union with God.

It will be no different with at home TV audiences. The presence of the Holy Spirit and His power will be evident no matter where American screens are being watched- by TV, phone or computer. No heart will be forsaken or abandoned. Whether alone or in groups, people will experience the heavens opening and a voice calling them to beloved relationship.

Icons by definition are considered to be a sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance to it.

Not to be confused with icons found on your computer, these human person icons will be a sign of Almighty God.

No longer will the American public be encouraged to venerate at an “American Idol”- which stops at a created image and worships that alone. These new American Icons will bring the world into the transcendent realities,

simply by pointing to God instead of themselves.

How will viewers know not to stop at an icon’s gifts and talents on display? Humility. In each icon will be a fullness of this virtue. Their souls will magnify the Lord, not themselves, much like Mary. A certain light will pour out of them as they offer their work and this gift will stream forth from them.

As persons embodied with a spirit, both the icon and the icon’s viewer will know God. All participants will be considered winners in their respective gift/talent category.

This will begin a new era in media.

The strength of the programming is expected to carry over into other countries and other forms of media. The Beauty that is given and received will literally save the world. As popularity grows, the Kingdom of God will draw closer.

Christ Himself will be so in love with the humility He finds on the earth, that He is likely to come again! He came the first time because of the perfect humility of the handmaid of the Lord, who was so open to receive Him, that He could not resist coming to rest in her Immaculate Heart and Womb.

His Second Coming will be the same, for He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.(Hebrews 13:8)

Rejoice! The Holy Spirit is already at work, prompting souls to sign up for this new project.

The card section in the stores are lined with rows and rows of the red-hearted messages. They’re filled with touching words about love.

Will you send out your messages? Your reminders of love?

I am reminded of what real love is to me…

TOTAL GIFT.

What is a total gift of love? It’s “being’ a love letter all year long.

It’s the example of a giving life that disposes others to believe in my love.

If I sit around on my computer most days and most nights,

barely waving at hand at the ones that I love…

Can I send them a message red scripted gushy words— in truth?

If I lie about what I have said and have done…

Can I sign my name to a red card bleeding love?

If I cannot die to my childish ways, and only value time spent on myself….

Will they read the love letter of my life?

My conduct will be the true test. The day to day gift will preach my love. An action, a look, a gesture, a smile …often does more than a long babbling of words.

Oh but wait, there are times when they’re unbearable to me! I just cannot see them as lovable. The feelings aren’t there, so the love must be gone…

Why work at it? Why waste my time?

The world would say so. Sign off, but don’t live it.

Go through motions, but harbor thoughts these thoughts:

“They’re not worth my energy and time.”

Imagine Christ as He hung on the cross of Real Love, thinking I’m not worth His time.

No, He sees in each one of us, the great price of His Love and offers His Sacred Heart to be pierced. The Blood that He shed – every drop shed because He says,

“You are worthy of this Love”.

“But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Christ died by “being” the real love letter. Read it at the crucifixion.

To love even when we don’t feel like it. To “will” the good of the other, while not counting the cost for ourselves.

And this is done daily. Often. Until is becomes more and more real.

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

I’m with ya, Skin Horse. I’m shabby. But the people who love me understand. And I read their love letters to me every day. Then I receive the Valentine’s meaning in truth.

And “being” a real love letter is what I hope for each day. I’ll love them even when joints are loose.

So that the hearts I encounter can know from my life that I see in them